As I’ve said before, I was out of the state this past week with limited Internet access, so I wasn’t able to instantly react to the Draft that took place last Tuesday, but after the results of Battleground, I think I have a better semblance of my thoughts anyways.
So, when watching the draft, I was taking note of not only who went to which brand, but the order in which the superstars were drafted. Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose going 1 and 2 did not surprise me, as they are the two superstars that have been pacing WWE as of late. Roman Reigns shot himself in the foot by violating WWE’s wellness policy, and Vince was said to have been irate at his folly right before the draft, and that damn sure played a part in Roman slipping to the sixth overall pick, especially considering he main evented WrestleMania the past two years. Kevin Owens getting picked only one spot ahead of Baron Corbin, though, was a bit disturbing to me. Corbin hasn’t done anything except main event the pre-show of WWE PPV against Dolph Ziggler since WrestleMania. They don’t look like they have anything big planned for him, even after behind drafted, so why he went that high is beyond me. You’d also have to be blind to not notice the huge talent gap.
Now, RAW got 3 picks for every two that Smackdown got, so RAW having more of the big time names weren’t surprising. Despite that, however, the range between talent on RAW and Smackdown is very disproportionate in my eyes. If you take away Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar and Finn Balor, RAW’s top 4 picks, you still have Sami Zayn, Chris Jericho, Kevin Owens and Cesaro. I’d think that at least two of them would head to Smackdown, and I especially was disappointed that they didn’t have KO and Sami go their separate ways (though after last night I totally don’t mind if they keep fighting). Those two simply can’t grow if they are still on the same show and not allowed to spread their wings. I remember watching Battleground last night and they cut to both the RAW and Smackdown rosters during the main event. Aside from John Cena and The Miz, I couldn’t tell if the Smackdown locker room was the Smackdown locker room or the lineup for WWE Superstars. It was just said. Yeah, you have Randy Orton, AJ Styles and Bray Wyatt, but it’s looking pretty razor thin when it comes to main event players. It’s kind of sad that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were talking about how they look towards the future, yet their top stars were two stars that have been WWE’s prominent stars for the past decade in John Cena and Randy Orton. I would think that guys like KO, Zayn, Balor or even guys like Nakamura and Joe would find themselves on Smackdown and be the show that focuses on the in-ring product.
As for the women, Charlotte and Sasha being on RAW already puts Smackdown at a disadvantage. Becky is highly underrated and Natayla is a great worker, but the talent gap is kind of wide. Whenever Bayley gets called up will probably play a huge role in where the power balance in that goes. I’m thinking that she will to go to Smackdown because between Paige, Alicia Fox, Nia Jax, Charlotte, Dana Brooks and Sasha Banks, Bayley will give the Smackdown Women’s Division more balance. I mean, I don’t think anyone is exactly on fire over Carmella. RAW will also be hosting the cruiserweight division, so a portion of the three hours will also be used for that as well. WWE hasn’t really ever utilized the cruiser weight division correctly since its inception, so I’m skeptical about how they will be utilized on the flagship show, but I’m always willing to try again if they do it right this time because the CWC has been very impressive to see.
The tag team division was more or less what I thought it was going to be. I’m glad they didn’t split up Enzo and Cass, because they showed in their pre-match promo last night at Battleground that they have great chemistry and letting them go solo now would prove to be a disaster not only for the tag team division, but for their respective careers. If one of them was drafted on Smackdown, there might be room, but it may not have bene likely. Breaking up the Wyatt Family and The Club were two sort of weird decisions for me. The Club really hasn’t accomplished anything together in WWE, and while AJ has said that the Club has expanded on Smackdown, the trio of AJ, Karl and Luke being on separate brands just doesn’t feel right. Braun Strowman being drafted on RAW might be tell-tale sign that he’ll get a singles push soon, but heaven forbid that happens. He’s still extremely green in a lot of areas. Hopefully the return of Luke Harper comes sooner than later.
Props to WWE for keeping the faith in Dean Ambrose as well. I was very convinced Seth would be carrying the WWE Title to RAW. Of course it wouldn’t be right that RAW would house not only the WWE Title, but the tag titles, Women’s Title and US Title while Smackdown only has the Intercontinental Championship. However, I was under the theory that Smackdown would introduce a new World Title, while WWE’s top show would have the WWE Championship. It seems, however, that WWE’s higher ups have faith in Ambrose to carry Smackdown with the likes of Styles, Orton and Cena on the roster. I didn’t think WWE would have Ambrose in for the long haul, but seeing as how much Reigns and Rollins have dominated since The Shield split, it’s good to see that Ambrose finally gets his time. I’m thinking that Stephanie will announce a new World Title and may give Seth Rollins the Triple H treatment back in 2002 and just hand him in the belt and he and Reigns may feud over that. Or maybe they hold off on a second world title for the time being. With the amount of talent that the RAW roster has, I can’t believe that they will allow RAW to go without a top prize for an extended period. There is one person in this draft that did pique my interest with what he said afterwards.
Cesaro, who was drafted to RAW took a chance on a backstage interview with JoJo to vent his frustrations about being drafted to RAW. Apparently, this was an unscripted promo where he just let his frustrations go unhindered. He flat out said that he wanted to be on Smackdown, where the in-ring product has more emphasis placed, where Daniel Bryan is the GM and not on RAW which really more home to the top faces, drama with the GM and sports entertainment. Despite proven ring stalwarts like Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens being on RAW, the culture that Raw has created is what Cesaro wanted to stay away from and wanted to be on Smackdown. Now, I’m sure he picked up a little heat backstage for his comments, but at the same time, guys like Cena and Chris Jericho have stated that one thing Vince appreciates is being aggressive and sometimes just saying “F It” and speak up. I credit Cesaro for saying this, despite his delivery not being all the way there, because what he said was true. Hopefully, he doesn’t get lost in the shuffle in the three hour RAW and he’ll find himself in a prominent feud where he can really test his metal.
So, basically in closing, the draft, in hindsight, didn’t chance much for me. Yeah, we now have separate brands again, separate announce teams and gives the Ruthless Aggression vibe back, just a little, but RAW is still superior to Smackdown. Smackdown has the WWE title to compensate for the title disparity, but RAW is still going to be the primary watch. It will be interesting to see the main event scene in Smackdown, especially for Summerslam, because Orton is occupied with Lesnar, and Cena will probably end his feud with Styles at Summerslam. So who does that leave for Ambrose at the top? I’m not exactly clamoring for another feud with Bray Wyatt, Dolph Ziggler is no longer a main eventer (if he ever was), and the heels on Smackdown are grossly lacking in the star power. There just isn’t enough balance in the rosters for me. Yes, RAW does have an extra hour to fill, but if the point of the draft was to give Smackdown higher ratings because the USA network was putting pressure on WWE to make it more watchable, then wouldn’t you put more high level guys on Smackdown? If I had the choice two or three out of the group of Balor, Jericho, Owens, Zayn, Cesaro and Sheamus would head to Smackdown. In addition, I’d also have Nakamura and Joe on the blue brand when WWE decides to call them up. Over-saturation of talent on one show can lead to disorganization of time and not enough distribution for everyone. I don’t think Smackdown will collapse, and I actually think it will do pretty good, but I still don’t think it has changed anything big in the long-term.
If WWE simply sticks to having good matches, focuses on storytelling and not make Smackdown look like a watered down version of RAW, then the split wouldn’t be necessary. The biggest thing for me is that this draft wasn’t a necessity. WWE has shown it can put on good RAW’s, and a good Smackdown here or there. They just voluntarily refuse to have consistency. With the new era being ushered in this week, it will be interesting to see how everything plays out now. So now, it’s the wait and see game. Until next time.
